Heat Haze Days
by HuaFeiHua
Summary: Momo is stuck on August fourteenth, and something, has to happen before she can move on.


_Inspired by JubyPhonic's cover of_ Kagerou Days _. I recommend taking that as a warning._

* * *

 **Word Count:** 4,253

* * *

August fourteenth, twelve-thirty noon. There wasn't a cloud in the stark, blue sky, leaving the angry rays of the sun to freely beat down on the two teenagers lazily rocking back and forth on a swing set in an otherwise empty playground. What a pretty day, despite the stifling humidity, screeching cicadas, and stagnant air currents. What a pretty day.

Momo was sick of the heat, sick of the crickets crying, sick, sick, sick of the day. She stared down at the wood chips beneath her feet, poking at them more out of boredom than any real desire to swing. Yet, despite her boredom with the day and exhaustion with the weather, she still quite liked the summer.

Besides, it was hard to deny: it _was_ a very pretty day. With a sky so blue and her classmate Todoroki by her side, all she needed was a soda in her hand for the summer experience to be complete.

"Hey, Yaoyorozu," Todoroki said from beside her. He stared down at a stray black cat on his lap, petting it absentmindedly. He didn't dare look her in the eye.

Momo dug her heels into the ground to stop what little sway she had going and stared at her friend expectantly.

"You know, I don't really like the summer time," he confessed, still fixated upon the cat.

Momo's face morphed into surprise, and she straddled the swing so that she could better talk to him. She rested her cheek against the burning chain as she cocked her head at him. "Well, why no—"

"Hey!" The cat leapt off Todoroki's lap without warning. "Come back here!" he called as he chased after it. The cat darted into the empty street, and Todoroki seemed to be completely oblivious to all his surroundings as he followed it.

Momo frowned. That was unusual. She struggled to untangle her leg and chase after him— _no, no, no, no…_

The blaring of a truck's horn was enough to snap him out of his daze, but just barely. Todoroki looked up, and he froze.

Momo did as well, her hand floating up to cover her mouth as her eyes widened in horror, feeling as if she were caught in slow motion.

Blood dripped everywhere, choked the summer air, and all it took was the blink of an eye. The offending truck sped away.

"No." The word escaped her like a final breath as nausea piled up in her stomach, filling her gut with weights she wasn't sure how to bear yet. " _No._ It's not—"

 _Possible?_

But it was.

There in the quiet little park she had been spending a summer afternoon, Momo screamed, for Todoroki Shoto was—

* * *

 _Tick, tock; tick, tock._

Momo awoke with a shriek, bolting upright out of bed and throwing the sheets off her legs like they were poisoned.

" _Miss? Is everything okay up there?_ " one of the maids called from down the hall.

Momo breathed heavily; sweat dripped down her forehead, but it wasn't from the heat. She was in a daze. She rarely, if ever, dreamed, let alone that vividly. The image of the dream's final moments were burned into her mind's eyes. She couldn't close her eyes for long without shivering.

"I'm fine," she replied, having regained some sense of reality. It was just a dream. It was just a dream, and nothing more. "I'm fine," she said again, this time to herself. She didn't really believe it, though.

She looked to see the time: August fourteenth, ten-something a.m. Already, the sun was shining harshly, killing any cloud that might dare mar its beautiful, cerulean sky. _Truly, a very pretty day_ , Momo thought as she placed two fingers on her wrist and breathed in time to her pulse until she was back to normal.

She sighed loudly and flopped backwards onto her bed. She stared at the blank, white ceiling, her mind _still_ reeling from the dream that didn't want to leave. "I'm fine," she said for the third time. "It was just a dream."

Saying it didn't make it seem any less real, but maybe it she said it enough times it would _sound_ true.

A shadow passed over her face, and Momo looked out the window just in time to catch the tail of a cat leaping lightly off her sill.

 _What you see is exactly what you're going to get._

Momo blinked in surprise, but any trace of the cat was gone.

* * *

"Hey look, a cat."

Momo stopped mid-step and eyed Todoroki with a growing sense of unease. Oblivious, the boy crouched down to stroke the black cat winding itself around his legs. The dream she had tried so hard to forget just hours earlier bubbled back to the forefront of her mind, but fighting a wave of nausea, Momo wrestled the memory back down.

The heat was getting to her, it seemed.

Momo flicked the sweat off her brow. Meanwhile, Todoroki picked up the cat and cradled it in his arms, either oblivious or uncaring of all the dangers a stray cat may pose. He gestured in the direction of their little park, and swallowing the ominous feeling fluttering about in her stomach, Momo followed.

The two of them plopped down on the empty swing set. The entire park was eerily empty, now that Momo thought about it. She rocked back and forth in silence as Todoroki fussed over the cat upon his lap.

"You know," Momo said carefully after a spell. "It's weird. I had a dream last night, and it's really left me wondering because I swear that in it, we were sitting in the same park we're sitting in now." She didn't dare look at Todoroki, but the way he fell silent was enough to make a cold stone settle in her stomach anyway.

"That's weird," he muttered, hardly loud enough for her to hear. The cat abruptly exited his lap and darted to the street. "Hey!" Todoroki began, but Momo caught his arm before he could follow it.

Her stomach was churning; all of this, all the time today she had spent with Todoroki, was entering the uncanny valley with how precisely it had been following her nightmare. Momo tried to swallow the lump forming in her throat, tried to hide how scared she was, as she said, "Hey… I think the two of us should leave."

Todoroki stared back at her, his gaze steady and his expression unreadable. Momo let go of his arm, and they stared at one another as their hands dropped back to their sides.

She hoped he hadn't heard the waver of uncertainty in her voice as she had suggested it.

He broke their gaze. "Yeah. It's too hot to be outside," he said, and now that he mentioned it, she noticed his face was flushed slightly from the heat. "There's an ice cream parlour that opened up downtown just last week. We could go there."

It was hard not to let out a sigh of relief. Momo smiled at him, the nagging fear in her belly fading away. "Let's go then!" she said, immediately starting off, but Todoroki didn't immediately follow suit. She turned around to find him facing the street and staring into space. "Todoroki… kun?"

That seemed to bring him back down to earth. "Yeah," he said, taking her hand while walking briskly passed her. "We should go."

Damn that summer heat haze.

* * *

The hand holding ended as abruptly as it started, and neither of them brought it up afterwards. The walk downtown would take them half an hour on the most direct route, so it wasn't as if they hadn't any opportunity to talk about it.

But they didn't, and it was quickly forgotten about.

"Man~" Momo said as the suburbs fell away in favor of the bustling city. "It's been so hot lately. I swear that for the last few days, it's been at _least_ thirty-eight degrees every day. Pretty weird, huh, Todoroki-kun?"

"Is it?" he wondered aloud. "It feels like it's always been this hot to me."

Momo looked at him curiously for a moment. "Oh yeah, I forget that your body regulates its temperature," she said with a smile. "I can't really lie here; I'm a little jealous of that."

Todoroki stared at his right hand for a moment. "Never thought about how convenient it is, now that you mention it," he said, then lightly touched the back of his hand to her cheek.

Momo yelped and flinched away from his touch, if only in surprise. "To-Todoroki-kun!"

He looked at her with a mild expression. He said something, but she couldn't catch it, the sounds of nearby construction work drowning him out.

"What?" she asked.

Once again, she couldn't hear his response, but before she could ask again, his expression darkened.

"Get out!" This she caught, for he shouted it into her ear as he violently pushed her away.

She had no time to protest or even wonder why, for the second she stumbled away, something fell down behind her. She knew because the breeze it generated ruffled her skirt.

The world fell silent, and turning around through air that seemed to have turned into thick, suffocating molasses, which only amplified the horror piling up in her.

There was a sickening crunch, just barely audible through the deafening clang of a fallen I-beam as it landed on the exact spot she had just been in. Momo had to stifle a scream as blood splattered everywhere, staining the concrete a deep shade of crimson and dying his white hair the same shade of red.

 _No, no, no, no, no, no—_

Buzzards circled in the sky already; pedestrians stopped to stare with abject horror. Construction workers called their condolences with shaky voices, but none of them reached Momo's ears.

She felt sick, so sick; a lump in her throat kept her from screaming, but the nausea at the sight of Todoroki's crushed and broken body was almost enough to make her—

* * *

Momo woke up choking. The urge to throw up was powerful, but she was too disoriented to get up and find a toilet. Sitting in bed, she fell forward and curled into a ball among her sheets, taking deep breaths to calm herself. It had only been a dream. A very violent, vivid one, but unreal nonetheless.

She wiped some wetness from her cheeks and only then found, much to her relief, that it was but tears, not blood. It hadn't happened. Todoroki _hadn't_ been violently killed. Twice. Nothing but a bad dream. Just a dream within a dream.

It was still hard for her not to sob.

"Miss, is everything okay up there?" the maid called from down the hall. "It sounds like you're crying. Would you like some tea, Miss?"

"No, I'm fine, thank you," Momo called, her voice frustratingly fragile. "I'm fine. I'm _fine_. It was just a dream." she sat up and gave her cheeks a hard pat, just to knock her fully back into reality again. "I'm _fine_ ," she repeated once again and checked the clock.

August fourteenth, a few minutes after noon. Dang. She knew that it was break and all, but she'd have to ask one of the servants to wake her before lunchtime because this was ridiculous. She could have sworn she didn't wake this late even in her dreams.

The shadow of a cat passed over her lap; she froze. It vanished just a moment later, but her cheerful determination was already killed off.

 _What you see is exactly what you're going to get._

 _Tak-clik-thunk. Tak-clik-thunk. Tak-clik-thunk._

Momo pushed her dread away and looked at the window.

 _Tak-clik-thunk._ Another pebble tapped on the glass, bounced off the sill, and fell to the soft dirt below.

Carefully, Momo opened the window, the hot, muggy air hitting her face with awful fervor, and looked down. In her yard, Todoroki dropped a fistful of pebbles and looked up at her.

 _Are we going out today, or is your mom making you go to that college entrance exam prep class again?_ he signed.

Momo resisted the urge to bite her lip. Her parents were out for the day, but if even if they came back before she did, she could get a maid to cover for her. But her dream and her dream within a dream hung over her like the plague.

She wanted to tell herself that they hadn't been real, but it was eerie how similar everything was. If it were simply a dream within a dream, it would make _sense_ that they would play out similarly to one another; all it would have been was her brain following a pattern, as brains are apt to do. But, this wasn't a dream, right?

Momo glanced at the clock twice. Both times, they were a quarter past twelve, and she knew it wasn't a dream.

People dreamt about things they do a lot or will soon be doing in anticipation for unforeseen events. She and Todoroki had been going to the park very frequently as of late, had plans to continue doing so for the last few fleeting days of summer, so dreaming about it wasn't that weird if she thought about it logically. Dreams often came up with weird and extreme situations that were so improbable, it might as well be considered impossible.

She pushed her head out of the window, glad in her newfound confidence that she was no longer dreaming.

 _I'll be down in a sec,_ she signed. Todoroki nodded at her, his expression unreadable.

* * *

Maybe she was living a nightmare.

The cat, the truck— those played out in the exact same way as her dream and avoided just the same. All the while, a weird feeling in her gut tugged at her conscience at the sheer coincidence of it.

She convinced him to take an alternate route to the ice cream parlour. Not that she fully believed that a beam would fall from the sky and crush him for real, but it wouldn't hurt to be careful. Besides, it wouldn't have sat well with her if they did things in the exact same way as her dream.

And now, they were there again. It seemed inevitable at this point.

On the way around the construction site, they discovered a flight of stairs to an el train. They thought it would be fun to take a joyride around the city in an air-conditioned car, take a detour to the parlour.

Yet, almost like fate, some sick version of _destiny_ , he slipped as they sprinted up the stairs two at a time.

Her innards twisted painfully; she found it hard to stand. Something in her told her she should've taken his hand when they ran, nevermind the impulse had been purely self-indulgent. At least then she could have caught him before—

 _CRACK!_

* * *

Her eyes snapped open, her heart still racing, but by this time, the third time, she didn't feel overwhelmed. Guilty, terrified, and confused, sure— she had been _so_ convinced it wasn't a dream— but overwhelmed? No. As much as she hated to think about it, she was getting used to the violent and bloody ways in which Todoroki was dying.

She checked the clock twice again, suspicious. Both times, they were just shy of noon. Well, at least she wasn't sleeping for an absurd amount of time, though this wasn't much better than in her dreams. Not to mention, she checked the clock twice in the last iteration, and it twice gave her the same time.

Time.

Momo stared down at her hands, counting off her fingers as a backup test. Yes, they were all there. She was most definitely not dreaming. _That_ she could say with certainty.

Time.

She had a while to get herself in order before Todoroki came tapping on her window. Until then, she could—

 _Ding-dong, dang-dong…_

Momo yelped embarrassingly loudly when the old grandfather clock down the hall sang its announcement of noon.

… _din-don, dan-don~_

"Miss, is everything okay up there?" a maid called from down the hall. (for the third time.)

"I'm fine," Momo called back to her. (for the third time.)

Time.

Suddenly, it all clicked.

 _Time._

She was in a time loop.

* * *

 _What you see is exactly what you're going to get._

The statement chilled Momo to the bone yet again, filling her with a sense of foreboding. She adjusted the hem of her sundress again in the mirror. Todoroki would come soon. She knew what she had to do.

* * *

The ice cream parlour _did_ have most excellent wares. Momo found herself smiling and laughing as she enjoyed it.

"Yaomomo, how do you plug log-2 of 125 into the calculator again? I'm not used to this one."

Momo stuck her spoon into her ice cream and took the calculator from Jirou. "Well, then, you should have brought your own. I told you we'd be working on everything, and that includes math."

"Auuugh, but _whyyyy_? There's, like, two whole weeks left until break is over! We have time to finish this _laterrrr_."

"Cheer up, Kyouka-chan," Tsuyu chimed in. "The sooner we get this done, the more we can enjoy our summer without obligations. Besides, you agreed to come anyway knowing it was going to be a study date."

"By the way, Yaomomo, how _did_ you find this place?" Uraraka asked as she returned to her seat, a bowl of fresh ice cream in her hands. (In the background, Jirou groaned in exhaustion.) "I chatted with the owner just now; he said they opened up about a week ago and that business has been slow."

"Todoroki-kun," Momo automatically replied. It wasn't a _lie_ by any means, but with the looks the girls were giving her, she regretted not giving them one.

"You know, you've been spending an awful lot of time with Todoroki-kun this summer," Jirou said with a smirk, pushing her homework aside so she could prop her chin up with her elbow. The other girls nodded in agreement. Suddenly, Momo felt rather like a cornered prey animal.

"Yeah, Momo-chan," Tsuyu added, tapping her chin thoughtfully. "I see you two alone at the park together a lot these days. Seems almost like a date."

Momo felt her cheeks heat up, and she shook her head frantically in an attempt to quell the girls' rising suspicion. "No, it's not like that at all! We just need excuses to get out of the house more, that's all."

"Aww, and you couldn't have just asked us?" Uraraka pouted exaggeratedly.

"And it's not like Todoroki doesn't have other friends he could be hanging out with too," Jirou added, her smirk now fully transformed into a sly grin. "Face it, Yaomomo, you guys are practically dating at this point."

"L-let's get b-back to logarithms, shall we?"

"That sounds an awful lot like denial, Momo-chan." Tsuyu peered at the other girl curiously. "Do you have a crush on Todoroki-kun?"

Momo couldn't blame her blush on the heat anymore. She looked almost like a fish out of water, with her mouth opening and closing repeatedly and soundlessly.

"Aww, don't be shy, Yaomomo," Uraraka said kindly. "Todoroki-kun is a good choice when it comes down to it. He's smart—"

"—handsome—" Jirou chimed in.

"—and he would treat you _right,"_ Uraraka finished. She pointed her spoon at Momo with a grin. "I mean, you told us about the whole 'I voted for you!' thing that happened during the finals. He trusts and respects you as a leader."

Momo looked down at her math notebook, her face burning up. "I-I-I guess," she admitted. "But—!" She was interrupted by her phone vibrating loudly against the table. Curious, she opened the notification, a text from a hidden number.

She regretted it instantly. Her vision immediately blurred with the tears welling up, her mouth filled with bitter bile, but she couldn't even properly process her train of thought as it keeled off the rails.

 _ **He's dead. Check the news for the latest villain attack and building collapse.**_

" _Yaomomo? What's going on? You're crying, are you— Yaomomo? YAOMOMO!"_

* * *

 _What you see is exactly what you're going to get._

* * *

The years had made her eyes hollow with sorrow.

Ten years. _Ten years_ she played through the same scorching day without rest, though each one was different from the last. It didn't matter if she was with him or not, the story always ended the same way: Todoroki Shoto dead, often violently so. Some days were bloody; others were not. She had seen muggings, drownings, electrocutions, beatings, incinerations… every possible way to die under the sun, she had seen happen to him.

Yet her heart oft fluttered at the sight of him alive and well the next morning, waiting nervously outside her front door or her bedroom window. _He was fine. He would live. It was all just a dream._

She still wished she could believe it was just a dream, some nightmare she could someday wake up from.

* * *

All the world was oddly silent that afternoon. Two kids, a boy and a girl, sat on a swing set in an empty park with the unbearable, enveloping heat of August fourteenth at twelve-thirty noon.

A cat, a black cat, _the_ black cat. It sat upon the boy's lap as the girl said nary a word about it. It was a familiar creature to her, but she had long since learned saying anything about it would just lead to trouble. There had once been a time when she would glare at the creature, insist they have nothing to do with it for a whole variety of reasons, but whether the boy conceded or not, the day always ended the same way.

Besides, time did a number of a person. Her eyes felt weary for just existing, tired of all they had seen in the last decade.

"I don't really like the summer time," Momo sighed into the empty playground. "It's always so hot, as if the air itself is trying to suffocate you, and the air conditioner always breaks down at cram school but they still don't let you out…"

Next to her, Todoroki kicked away some wood chips. "Well, at least here you can complain about it."

"I feel like I haven't felt cold in forever…" She lifted her face to the sky, begging its unbreaking plains of blue to give her a break.

Something like ice touched her cheek, but she didn't flinch. Momo slowly turned to gaze at Todoroki, the softest, deepest ache rumbling in her heart as she gazed into his mismatched eyes. Was it just her, or was there truly a spark of something in them that hadn't been present in their first day here?

Todoroki cupped her face in his chilly right hand, and Momo's heartbeat practically doubled. _What was this?_ She'd seen thousands of timelines, watched him and her feelings die a little bit each time, but now, for the first time in forever, it seemed like something in her soul was budding again. Was it hope? Fear? Remorse? Dare she say it— _love?_

Maybe. Maybe.

Maybe after ten years, she'd found her charm.

With him, the seemingly stifling summer air was breathable again. With him, she felt for the first time again. With him, could they someday…?

"Hey!" he called as the cat leapt off his lap. "Come back!"

His hand left her face in an instant, but the cold still remained. Momo's heart shattered at the familiar words, the reality of her situation bursting the bubble of her dreams instantaneously.

 _No. Not again, please, not again…_

Her body moved without consent of her mind, jumping up from the swingset, grabbing Todoroki's arm, and yanking him away from the truck inevitably speeding down the street. For a moment, Momo's spirits rose. He was out of the way! She had saved him, they could—

Newton was a bitch.

She could hardly hear him scream at her to move, her mind was already so far gone out. The impact didn't even hurt as much as she expected, and her blood was warm in a way that was comfortable. The sky, so blue, had stars in it already, and his face, panicked and drowned in tears, was up there with them.

She smiled as she slipped away, glad that he would not have to suffer any more.

* * *

A cat padded into Todoroki's room and settled on his lap with a soft, " _Mao."_

Todoroki pet it absently, wanting to at least treasure the moment of calm. He'd long since grown used to this nightmare. He'd try again today.

"Guess I failed again," he said as he sat alone, the black cat still cradled in his arms.

* * *

 ** _Author's Note:_** _when the crypt doors creak and the tombstones quake, ~*edgy*~ hua comes out to write this stuff. (i think the fact that i started this in my mandarin class speaks as a testament to how much i hated being in there.) good thing i'm not taking mandarin again this year WHOO! school started again four days ago halp._

 _anyway i can't lie to you guys: this was weirdly self-indulgent. i like to think that i've developed a reputation for writing cute fluffy things with maybe a dash of light angst, at least among my regular readers, so i actually kind of hope i caught those who know me at least a little off-guard hehe. sometimes i just have this insatiable craving for something awful and violent, so full of raw and negative emotions, and this was a good outlet for that demented desire. i like to say i have all the chill and yet zero chill at the same time so i guess you guys finally got to see my zero chill side lol._

 _so YES i LOVED writing this oh so much. it was cathartic, but the beast of writing-disturbing-things has gone back to sleep within me, so i don't think i'll be writing anything as extreme as a kagerou days au again. (side note i've been meaning to watch kagerou project for literally years now...) i am at heart still a terrible, sappy romantic. fluff is my cocaine and i'm not getting off it any time soon. (don't do drugs y'all)_

 _anyway whew this is a long a/n, but this was fun! thank you so much for reading. drop a fave if you enjoyed it, leave any and all thoughts in the reviews if that's what you're into (yes, even hatred is welcome), and as always, have a greaaaaaat daaaaayyyy~~~_


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